title: Assessment of ablative margin by MRI with ferucarbotran in radiofrequency ablation for liver cancer: comparison with enhanced CT.
abstract: OBJECTIVE
  Our aim was to determine whether ablated liver parenchyma surrounding a tumour can be assessed by MRI with ferucarbotran administered prior to radiofrequency ablation (RFA) compared with enhanced CT.
  
  
  METHODS
  55 hepatocellular carcinomas (HCCs) in 42 patients and 5 metastatic liver cancers in 3 patients were treated by RFA after ferucarbotran administration. We then performed T(2)* weighted MRI after 1 week and enhanced CT after 1 month. T(2)* weighted MRI demonstrated the ablated parenchyma as a low-intensity rim around the high intensity of the ablated tumour in these cases. The assessment was allocated to one of three grades: margin (+), high-intensity area with continuous low-intensity rim; margin zero, high-intensity area with discontinuous low-intensity rim; and margin (-), high-intensity area extending beyond the low-intensity rim.
  
  
  RESULTS
  Margin (+), margin zero and margin (-) were found in 17, 35 and 5 nodules, respectively. All 17 nodules with margin (+) and 13 of those with margin zero were assessed as having sufficient ablative margins on CT. The remaining 22 nodules with margin zero had insufficient margins on CT. The overall agreement between MRI and CT for the diagnosis of the ablative margin was moderate (κ = 0.507, p < 0.001). No local recurrence was found in 15 HCC nodules with margin (+), whereas local recurrence was found in 4 (11.8%) out of 34 HCC nodules with margin zero.
  
  
  CONCLUSIONS
  Administration of ferucarbotran before RFA enables the ablative margin to be visualised as a low-intensity rim, and also enables the evaluation of the ablative margin to be made earlier and more easily than with enhanced CT.
authors.affiliation: Division of Medicine and Clinical Science, Department of Multidisciplinary Internal Medicine, Tottori University School of Medicine, Yonago, Japan.
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Tokunaga
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Koda
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Matono
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Sugihara
authors.forename: T
authors.initials: T
authors.lastname: Nagahara
authors.forename: M
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Ueki
authors.forename: Y
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Murawaki
authors.forename: S
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Kakite
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Yamashita
mesh_terms: D000368:Aged; D000369:Aged, 80 and over; D006528:Carcinoma, Hepatocellular / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery*; D017115:Catheter Ablation; D003287:Contrast Media; D003911:Dextrans; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D008113:Liver Neoplasms / Q000175:diagnosis* / Q000473:pathology / Q000601:surgery*; D008279:Magnetic Resonance Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D058185:Magnetite Nanoparticles; D008297:Male; D008875:Middle Aged; D011446:Prospective Studies; D014057:Tomography, X-Ray Computed
chemical_list: D003287:Contrast Media; D003911:Dextrans; D058185:Magnetite Nanoparticles; C065507:ferumoxides